Medicine and Violence
by DarkandtwistyGirl
Summary: Very AU. Set in S14. Completely unbeknown to the rest of the ER staff, for the past several months Luka has been getting drunk and violently beating Abby. One day it goes too far, and Abby is forced to reveal her pain. Warning! Abuse rape. *Complete*


******Disclaimer: I don't own ER.**

**Okay, so... The first version of this didn't go over so well, so here's basically the same plot, rewritten, hopefully it'll be better received. And as it says in the summary, this is a spousal abuse, rape fic involving Abby and Luka, if you don't like that, don't read it.**

**And I'd just like to dedicate this fic to FutureTVwriter, without your support I may have given up on writing, so thanks!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

It was early in the morning, there were gurneys lining the hallways, and the staff were rushing in every direction, trying to manage a massive number of patients. Pratt had just started his shift, he was busily sorting out paperwork at the bustling admit desk, he almost didn't notice the bloodied figure carrying a young child stumble through the doors.

But lucky he did notice, and he got up from his seat, and weaved his way through the crowd. By the time he reaches the woman, she had collapsed to the floor, and the child, who he doesn't pay enough attention to to recognise, was sitting beside her, bawling his eyes out.

Pratt called out for help, with no response. Everyone else was busy, and so he had to roll her over by himself, and as soon as he rolled her over, Pratt barely managed to suppress a gasp of shock. The woman lying barely conscious there on the emergency department floor was Abby, it's only now that Pratt turned his attention to the screaming child sitting nearby, Joe.

Pratt called out again, louder than before. "Guys! I need some help over here!"

"Arh. Wha'... Whr..." Abby mumbled incoherently, drawing Pratt's attention back to her.

Pratt gently attempted to soothe Abby, stroking her hair as he told her. "It's alright. We're gonna take care of you."

After a moment, Pratt's call finally caught the attention of another ER staffer, Sam. She was juggling several medical kits, and only half paid attention to Pratt as she called out. "I've got to take these to Morris. What do you need?" It was at this exact moment that a person who was previously blocking her view of Abby moved, and Abby's prone form was brought into full view. "Oh god." She practically dropped the medical kits onto the admit desk, before rushing over to Pratt and Abby. As she surveyed the multitude of bruises and lacerations adorning Abby's body, she shakily asked. "What do you need me to do?"

"Go get a gurney, and clear a trauma room." Pratt replied as he started checking Abby over for a cause of her current state.

Sam nodded in acknowledgement, before taking off quickly in search of what was sure to be an elusive available bed, leaving Pratt kneeling beside Abby, working to at least protect her from further injury while she was lying on the floor. Until they knew how severe, or not her injuries were, he didn't want to move her any more than necessary until she was on a backboard.

* * *

When Sam returned a minute later, with a gurney, and Tony, who'd she'd enlisted to help, because she knew that they would need help to move Abby, and also to treat her, Pratt was still kneeling at Abby's side, but now he had Joe in his arms, who was still crying inconsolably.

"What the hell?" Tony muttered in surprise as he saw Abby, but he quickly pushed down his feelings of horror and of rage at whoever had done this, and turned his focus to tending to Abby.

The well experienced group worked quickly to lift Abby onto the gurney, and move her into trauma two. On their way, Pratt handed Joe off a very stunned Frank.

* * *

Once they got her into the trauma room, Sam started to work to carefully cut away Abby's bloodied t-shirt and jeans, while Pratt and Tony ordered several other nurses who were assisting.

* * *

The room was still a hive of activity as they worked to assess Abby's condition, when several minutes later, just as Tony was checking for facial fractures, Abby's eyes opened, albeit only slightly due to swelling.

"She's starting to come around." Tony looked up, and informed the others, before turning his attention back to Abby. He leaned over her as he said. "Hey, how're you doing there, Lockhart?"

There was a brief pause before Abby weakly answered. "Not good. Where's Joe? Where's my baby?"

"He's out at the admit desk with Frank. He seems fine." Tony assured her before asking. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I want my baby, give him to me." Abby demanded as she reached frantically out into thin air with her arms, despite the fact that her right arm was almost certainly broken.

Fearing that Abby might further injure herself, Pratt quietly ordered Sam. "Soft restraints."

Sam quickly, but uneasily followed Pratt's instruction, before moving into Abby's line of vision, and asking her. "Do you want us to call Luka for you? Let him know you're here."

As soon as the words left Sam's mouth, Abby began to tremble, and cried out in panic. "No! Please no, please don't! Please don't let him near us! You have to keep him away from us! Please."

They all heard her words, and it wasn't hard to figure out who had so brutally attacked their coworker, as unbelievable as it was. Sam gently ran her hand through Abby's hair as she told her. "Okay, okay. We won't call him, just relax."

But as Abby started to fearfully whisper. "Please don't touch me. Leave me alone. Please don't touch me. Leave me alone" It was as though she didn't even know where she was.

Seeing that Abby was on the verge of hyperventilating, despite the heartache he felt at doing it, Pratt ordered Sam. "Give her two milligrams of Ativan."

This order caused Sam to hesitate momentarily before she went over to the medication cabinet to retrieve the prescribed drug. And a moment later, she returned to the bedside, needle in hand, and glanced regretfully at Abby before she plunged the needle into her IV line.

"He raped me." The words came out as barely a whisper, but everyone still heard them leave Abby's mouth as she drifted out of consciousness.

* * *

They were silent, too shocked to speak, for close to a minute. Then Sam slowly managed to regain her focus, and told the others. "We'll have to do a rape exam. And someone from ortho is going to need to check her out."

"Okay. Set me up to do the kit, and page Neela, she's still on the ortho rotation." Pratt told Sam, as they started to get back to work.

* * *

Ten minutes later, just as Pratt was finishing the rape examination, collecting samples to hand over to the police, Neela came into the trauma room at a run, she had tears rolling down her face.

Pratt hastily pulled out the speculum, and covered Abby up with a sheet as he told Neela. "She's got minor lacerations internally and externally, look like they should heal fine without suturing... We are more worried about the fractures, left orbit, at least four ribs, right cheekbone, right ulna and radius."

Neela was silent for a moment, her eyes scanning her friend's battered body. "She told me they'd been fighting. That he'd started drinking. I should've helped her. I didn't know... I would've helped her."

Sam went over to Neela, and rubbed her arm comfortingly as she said. "No one saw this coming. It's not your fault."

Neela offered Sam a small smile of thanks before she moved over to the bedside, and starts examining Abby as she said. "Oh my... She's a mess. Why's she unconscious? Did you give her something?

"Ativan, two milligrams. It should wear off soon." Pratt answered willingly, before he turned to Tony. "I've got to get back out on the floor; you can manage here, right?"

"Yeah, sure." Tony murmured as he moved to help Sam get Abby settled back into the bed.

* * *

Two hours later, Neela took Abby up to surgery to put pins into her severely fractured arm, while Pratt went out to the admit desk, ignoring the chaos around him as he went to check on Joe. Frank had Joe balanced in his arms as he was working, as he saw Pratt walking towards him, he asked the doctor. "The police are here, they said they wanted to talk to you, they're here about Dr Lockhart, aren't they? What happened to her?" His worry was barely concealed by his gruff façade.

Pratt paused for a moment before he told him. "Yeah, Frank. She was attacked. Where are the cops?"

Frank pointed towards the doctors' lounge as he asked. "Is she alright?"

"Not really." Pratt answered wearily as he walked away, towards the lounge.

* * *

When Pratt reached the doctors lounge, he knocked briefly before swinging the door open, revealing the two street cops sitting at the table. One of them asked him. "Are you Dr Pratt? We were called down here to do a report on a rape."

"Yeah, that's me." Pratt said as he sat down opposite the men, he then asked. "What do you need to know?"

The other police officer replied. "We just need the details on the vic, any physical evidence you've got."

"..." There was a brief silence before Pratt replied. "Her name's Abigail Lockhart, she's one of our docs."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't-" The officer apologized.

"No problem." Pratt said before continuing. "She walked in this morning with her son, Joe, collapsed in the waiting area. We brought her straight back, when she regained consciousness, she was really, she panicked when we offered to call her husband, they've been having some issues lately, but-"

The officer didn't even allow him to finish before he questioned. "What's the husband's name? Do you know where he is?"

Pratt sighed tiredly as he answered. "Luka Kovac, he works day shifts at a hospice, but I don't know what it's called." After having seen what Luka had most likely done to Abby, he felt absolutely no sense of obligation to protect or give Luka any warning before telling the police. He actually wanted to kill him.

**

* * *

**

Epilogue

In the six months that followed, Abby testified against Luka, and watched as the judge read out a five year prison sentence, she quit her job at County, and moved to Boston to accept a job offer there; she left with barely a word to anyone, she didn't know what to say, there weren't words for how she felt about her friends who had supported her completely through her recovery and the trial.

And even though to this day, she couldn't hear Luka's name without feelings of anxiety bubbling back up to the surface, and she spent two hours of every week sitting in a psychologist's office, Abby was starting to move on with her life, for her sake, and for Joe's.

Their life was still a long way from perfect, but it was getting there.

* * *

**The End.**

**I am so glad to have this one finished. It mightn't be a great ending, but it's this or nothing.**

**Thanks for reading! Please take a moment to leave a review. Constructive criticism is welcome, but no flames!**


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